Alice Dent and the Incredible Germs

Gwen Lowe's Alice Dent and the Incredible Germs is a funny adventure for 7 year olds about a girl whose ordinary cold turns out to be a very big deal.

What happens

Mr and Mrs Dent don't much like children. They're terrified of germs. Mrs Dent disinfects the newspaper and then toasts it in the oven, and Alice has to have five baths a day.

So when Alice sneezes at breakfast, she's locked in her bedroom. And that's the least of her problems. The new Best Minister for Everything Nicely Perfect has banned giggling at school, and birthday parties, and orange clothes. One night he turns up outside her house in a long black car, and his men want Alice.

Alice escapes out of her bedroom window. (Her dad is stuck in a plastic rose hedge being bitten by the neighbours' cats at the time.)

Before long she's given the police a fake name, Portland Maggott, and been packed off to Tryton Mell. It's a school for "grubby" children where giggling is against the rules and dinner is served frozen solid.

This has a lovely, gloriously silly Roald Dahl feel. The grown-ups are awful in the most over-the-top ways, like the head of discipline and dusting who owns a giant rabbit trained to sniff out phones. And the jokes pile up fast.

Alice is easy to root for. She's spent her whole life trying to be invisible and clean, and now she's running across grass for the first time ever. Kevin Mudd, the boy she meets in the back of the police car, is brilliant company too. He says exactly what he thinks, usually at the worst moment.

And the giggles? Alice keeps getting them at exactly the wrong time. Who hasn't been there?

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Alice's parents are very quick to hand her over to men in masks. Kevin's mum has been rushed to hospital and his dad is in prison. A child who worries about being taken away from home might find those bits unsettling, so they're worth a quick chat.

What to read next

If they like their horrible grown-ups larger than life, Roald Dahl's Matilda is in the library too. Matilda's parents treat her like a scab they can't wait to flick away, so she takes herself off to the village library instead.